Troll Batman: Issue 1
by Skaian Redeemer
Summary: In an alternate universe gone mad, where Trolls and Humans live side-by-side, Batwoman  secretly business tycoon/socialite Kanaya Maryam  investigates the kidnapping of Commissioner Eridan Ampora in the wake of an attack by The Joker.    Sadly dropped: now with notes discussing the remainder of the story and three other issues that will never be!
1. Chapter 1

_In the AO3 version, characters who are in disguise (or showing their true identity, as your take on the Batman mythos goes) speak in their texting tones, similar to my other fic: _A Hand in Holding Hands_. In this version, the quirks are still present but I decided not to highlight the lack of colour like I do in aHiHH. It'd just get messy. You'll miss some of the effect by reading the fic here, but I know some of you prefer not to change over._

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><p>What was going down at the recycling plant was bad enough, but when shots rang out outside Gotham Central itself, the Commissioner knew it was going to be a bad night. He was out of the way of his window with his pistol drawn in a moment's notice ﾖ once, he had liked to think that when it came to a firefight, he was simply the best there was. But he knew better now. It was a strange world, and it had done some humbling things to Eridan Ampora over his decades on the force.<p>

"This is Ampora, what's going on?" he hissed into his cell, as soon as he found a number on the ground floor that would pick up.

"Someone opened fire just by the front desk!" called back a panicked officer. "There's seventeen of them, and three lusii!"

"Big ones?"

"Nothing we couldn't handle at first. We've pushed them out the door but they're firing in the windows!"

Eridan had to ponder that. Gotham Central was no normal police station, structurally. Not in _this_ town. He understood the gang trying to get in before attacking, but having lost ground, he couldn't imagine them trying to hold out from outside. The place was a fortress.

"Keep them out, I'll be right down." Eridan tried to shake off the sleep that had been sneaking up on him as he had done his paperwork. Another thing he had learned about this city was that anything could happen, at any time, but usually at night. Unfortunately, the city had decided to do both, and he had been up for nearly thirty hours and counting. It was why he wasn't at the recycling plant, and it was why he was not prepared for what happened next.

The sound of glass breaking in his office behind him caused him to turn, and he did not have time to react further. The invader had fired first, and soon the other guns were silent.

* * *

><p>"but you know, bats? you're not doing so bad tonight! IN FACT I'D SAY YOU'RE ON A ROLL! aHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!"<p>

The Joker kicked a switch and up-ended an entire roll of recycled paper, which tumbled toward Batwoman at alarming speed. Like virtually everything else in the plant, it had been tinted purple, but that was hardly her immediate concern. She pulled her grapple gun out of her belt and hooked it to an overhead beam, clearing the stampeding roll easily. She swung over toward the Joker, but he had well enough warning to step away.

Batwoman took her in new surroundings, keeping her eyes on her opponent. She knew better than to let the Joker get the drop on her. All around them she could see machines working at the blink of an eye to spritz raw materials with liquid Joker Gas where they would have used plain water. She had no idea how he had planned to smuggle toxic but obviously purple products onto the market, but knowing the Joker, perhaps the point had less to do with the damage and more to do with the purple.

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS?" asked the Joker, who then started to chuckle. "i mean besides you being dressed up as a bat?"

Batwoman closed on him. He was keeping his arms wide and she could see they were free of weapons or even his usual lethal joy buzzers or needles. The moment's relief from caution proved her undoing, as she was struck in the back of the head by a jarring force. Her cowl, armoured and designed to conceal the shape of her horns, took most of the blow, but she still slumped to the ground. To her side, she saw the ridiculous shadow of a boxing glove affixed to a spring.

"No people skills," said Harlequin. She dropped to her knees, the bells on her hat jangling, and popped the glove back into her gun. "Geeze, Batsy, you're a wreck." To the Joker, she said, "It's like she's all dressed up for a Halloween party but never got an invitation. Smile, Batsy!" She reached over and forced Batwoman's lips into a contorted smile past the cowl. Batwoman shut her eyes: colour had long since flooded her pupils and she was not going to trust the contacts and cowl alone at this range. "You're never gonna get to a party scowling like that."

"of course, we've got our own party to attend, rosie!" The Joker pulled a remote from one of his seemingly infinite pockets and used it to open a door to the high-ceilinged garage that had once accepted recycling trucks. Beyond was nothing short of a hot air balloon, already inflated with the Joker's sneering grin stretched across it. "A PARTY FOR THE WHOLE MOTHERFUCKING CITY!"

Batwoman smiled. Give the supervillains enough time and they'll always tell. Harlequin, her gloved hands still on Batwoman's face, noticed at once.

"Uh-oh," was all she managed before Batwoman tossed out a batarang, which knocked the remote out of the Joker's hands. Batwoman then landed a fist straight at the base of Harlequin's ribs, but though she reeled, she was flexible enough to kick Batwoman across the face in return without even standing. Adrenaline wasted, she had a harder time getting back to her feet. Batwoman was not so disadvantaged. As the Joker made his break for the blimp, cackling, she was hot on his tail.

Batwoman felt another impact from behind, this one poorly aimed and hitting on the back of the knee. She faltered, and rounded to grab the glove and yank the gun out of Harlequin's hands before doing anything else. She tossed it far aside.

"I got her, Mr. J!" Harlequin called eagerly toward the Joker, to no response. She continued to stare in a happy smile after him. "Y'know," Harlequin said as she got to her feet, one hand still clutching her gut. "I was serious before, you really need help. Some kind of animal-based repressed memory sort of condition. You're a real psychopomp." Batwoman raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you try talkin' to a shrink?" Harlequin suddenly bolted toward Batwoman, and vaulted over her with a handspring. Landing opposite her opponent, Harlequin struck Batwoman with a roundhouse. "Oh yeah! Like me!"

Her roundhouse twisted into a second, but that one stopped short, caught in her opponent's hand. "I Think" Batwoman said, "You're A Little Out Of Practice" She hefted Harlequin by the ankle by virtue of her Trollish strength and height, and handcuffed her there to a nearby beam, upside-down. "I'll Be Sure To Think About The Psychopomp Suggestion"

"You don't have to be so rough, you know!" Harlequin called after her, as she walked off. "You might give a girl the impression you don't like hanging around with her any more! Eh?" Harlequin harrumphed at the silence, and then bent up on upper body strength in hopes of reaching the cuffs. It took two attempts, but she eventually reached it and extracted on of the lock picks from under her hood.

"Freeze!" shouted a cop, part of a group that had approached in Batwoman's wake. "Hands up!"

Harlequin turned her head back, looking at the cops upside-down. "Y'know, technically they are," she said.

Meanwhile, Batwoman hung on her reserve grapple, dangling in the air above the police barricade. The Joker and his balloon had escaped through a hole he had blown in the roof, and it had been all she could do to catch hold. She had almost cleared the gap between them when he returned to the side.

"y'know, i just came up with the best game for my party! we'll call it 'splat!'" He pulled out a giant pair of novelty scissors that had just apparently been lying there in the basket. "WHOEVER GETS BATWOMAN FALLING THROUGH THEIR ROOF WINS A PRIZE! eeeaH-hAhAhAhA!"

Batwoman deflected the scissors from her cable with another batarang and they went tumbling past. The Joker, as though he had already forgotten she was a threat, turned away. "careful with those!" he shouted. "ONE HOLE AND WE'LL ALL BE SOMEONE'S 'PRIZE'! heheheHEHEhe" He slammed his hand onto a nearby tank, which Batwoman figured must be full of more Joker Gas. She pulled up over the edge of the basket, though the Joker kept her back to her until the last moment, when he turned about and attempted to spray her with the trick flower pinned to his lapel. She ducked to one side. Sure enough, the liquid spurted from the flower began to melt away a side of the basket. Once the flower had been filled with off-brand soda, but Batwoman had long since learned not to count on that being the case.

"What Was That You Said About Holes" she asked. The Joker gave an innocent shrug, but Batwoman could not help but notice the balloon's heading: straight toward the river. Nonchalantly, she reached into her belt and tossed a batarang straight up into the air. It cut through the balloon twice, before returning just above her hand, as they had begun to plunge.

"w-WhAt ArE YOU DOING?" the Joker shouted.

"I Get The Impression-" With a sudden jarring motion, the balloon was snapped up in white coils. "-That You Had Planned For This Contingency"

The Joker's lusus lowered them to the ground, its hideous, distorted smile leering down at them. Batwoman tried not to look up at the creature, into its blind eyes. That face was torn, muscles wasting from disuse, jaw locked and indigo rips carved into its mask. It had barely survived the Joker Gas she had deflected into it, months ago. Better it than every man, woman and child in the Gotham Museum of Art, but if she had ever needed a sign that the Joker still bore some emotion, it was how he had complimented her "art" in between retaliatory blows.

Instead, she ran her thumb up the touch sensor on the butt of one of her guns, and fired a tranquilizer dart into the lusus, at nearly full dosage. It lashed out, spraying water and sand in every direction, laughing hideously as its diseased nerves felt every touch as a tickle. It did not notice the sedatives at once but the Joker did, diving onto its back as it squirmed below it, rasping breath shooting out past its rigid grin as it thrashed in painful laughter. "you've go the sense of humour of a wet mop, Batwoman! YAH!" he shouted to his lusus, who turned back to the water.

Batwoman had fought the Joker and his lusus long enough to know his blood colour, and knew he could outlast her underwater. She grappled for her breathing mask, only to be deliberately smashed by the lusus' tail, its loyalty to its child still obvious after all it had been through. Instead, she grabbed a tracker dart and fired that instead. It clipped on the lusus' tail, but the lusus did not even flinch: too many Trolls tried to use their large-scale lusus to escape, and so Batwoman had long since tipped her darts with a solution to prevent their notice.

She knelt in the sand for a moment as the lusus disappeared, until she finally lost track of it visually. When she took to her feet, she realized they had crash landed not far from the plant, and the police that surrounding it. A familiar silhouette beckoned to her, and she took to her feet.

She tapped a button hidden just under her cowl. "Oracle," she said, not losing the scratch in her voice less she be overheard. "Im Tracking The Jokers Lusus With Dartﾅ 0524. I Need A Minute But Tell Me The Moment He Comes Up For Air For More Than A Breath"

"uH, gOT IT, kANAYA,"

Detective Bullock met her at the perimeter, where she stayed. "Did ye get him?" he asked, clearly not expecting the best.

"Tracking Him As We Speak" she replied. "Harlequin"

Detective Bullock grunted and tossed his head toward a squad car in the back. There, her hood removed, stood Rose Lalonde, hair mussed but otherwise orderly, proper and cooperating.

Rose looked up. "Batwoman," she called. "You were right. Psychopomp's a mythical figure. I was completely off base. I'm going to have to get my lawyer to bring me a copy of the DSM-IV, along with... -_snerk_- oh..." She pondered, her face muscles twitching to bury her smile. "...Ovid, perhaps." And then she began to giggle, her prim demeanour almost hiding the motions. Batwoman could look at her unmasked no more than she could the lusus. She had known Rose Lalonde: promising, bright, and almost immune to the stress of her work. She had tried to reach Noir, past his tally-scars. Rose had even tried to speak to her own brother, after he had given up his mind to his puppet, with no sign of psychological wear. But when she had tried to speak to John Doe, Rose Lalonde had disappeared forever. Harlequin wore what left of her as a mask stretched taught across her face and personality, far more than the inverse. Harlequin, not Rose, smiled at Batwoman as they pushed her into the car, in hopes of seeing her flinch. Batwoman did not, and she did not look back.

"Every Item In That Plant Is Poisoned" Batwoman cautioned Bullock. "They Will Have To Be Disposed Of Properly And Promptly"

"Well, we've got bigger problems than that," Bullock said. Batwoman could see the rest of the police backup already scrambling to clear the area. "And unless the Joker's got something else up his sleeve, you might want to see this one."

"I Know" Batwoman said. She had got the report from Oracle in the middle of the chase. "Gotham Central Was Just Attacked"

"What, are you a genie or something? Well how about this?" He held up his cell. "This just came straight to me. Maybe it hasn't made its way through your crazy psychic network yet. Whoever it is? Made off with the Commish. He's been kidnapped." He turned around. "Chew on that, will you?" He then counted to three, and turned back, to find Batwoman gone. "-good," he said. "Looks like we understand one another here."

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><p><em>If I recall correctly, my logic was "[<em>_-__w]hat is Batman if not a socialite who spends his evenings fighting crime as a vampire?"_

_Just to make this perfectly clear: "Harley Quinn" is a pun on "Harleen Quinzel" and there's no real reason for Rose to use it._

_What was with the Japanese text that leaked into this thing's original version? Seriously.  
><em>


	2. Chapter 2

_You can't tell in this version, but on AO3, when Kanaya is out of disguise and out in public, she continues to use a "disguise voice," this one her usual green. As a result, she only uses plain text when with her allies._

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><p>"There Are Two Crime Scenes"<p>

Batwoman overlooked the Gotham City Police Department from a neighbouring building. While she had reached the point in her career where officers - Trolls, Humans and Carapaces all - simply cowered from her instead of opening fire, she preferred the shelter of a safe rooftop. But it was time to get to work. "The Attackers That Took The Commissioner Were Much Better Armed. More Efficient Too. The Window And Adjoining Wall Have Been Blown To Pieces But They Took The Commissioner And Left Without Doing Any Further Damage. Im Going To Prioritize The Office Running Forensics Now"

Batwoman jumped the gap, and lowered herself into the ruined office with the help of her cape. It was a disaster zone, with not just the wall but part of the floor blown away. The doorway the Commissioner had been using for cover was similarly damaged. Batwoman began to run her tests through a special set of gloves, and waited for Oracle's response. He was getting a live feed from her mask and with larger screens available to him, was getting more out of her forensic readings as well. She did not like his silence. "Thoughts" she asked, before the pause had gone on too long.

"tHE, uH, wORK IS A BIT TOO NEAT," Oracle admitted at last. "nOT AN EXPLOSION, nOT EVEN A BIG HIT, iT JUST SORT OF,,, fELL APART, iNTO LITTLE TINY PIECES,"

"Poison Ivy" Batwoman asked, as she let her gloves take a small sample from the largest shard of glass she could find: no bigger than a fingernail. Jade Harley had once whipped up a series of vines that could tear down a wall into its component parts. It was the reason she was currently loose, and for all Batwoman knew, it could have been further perfected.

"tHAT COULD BE, bATWOMAN, aRE THERE ANY PLANTS OR ROOTS,"

Batwoman saw none, but checked out through the gap in the wall all the same: nothing but water damage and debris. "I Dont Think So. Has Anyone Reported Seeing The Commissioner Or His Captors Escape Or Possibly The Thugs At The Front Gate"

A fair pause. Oracle was too professional to make it a long pause, but the worry was there. ""

Batwoman frowned. She should have expected this. In a world with three cultures, Commissioner Ampora had played the rather un-Troll-like roll of "father" to Tavros Nitram. Sometimes it veered pale or ashen, as the situation demanded, but as Ampora himself had once remarked to Batwoman, "im just too old for him" That had sounded so little like the man Batwoman had met when she first started her work, the man obsessed with romance in his fleeting spare time, that she had just had to smile. Eridan Ampora had finally grown up, in his fifties. But Batwoman knew Oracle would be feeling it harder. Ampora had been there for Tavros for most of his life, even after he had been legally adopted by a rich business tycoon, even after the Joker had developed a caliginous crush on the superhero named "Robin." He had went after his legs with a crowbar, until he would never fly again.

"tHAT GLASS YOU'RE LOOKING AT IS KIND OF, uH, sTRANGE," Oracle said into her ear, as she reminisced.

"How Do You Mean"

"iTS, wELL,,, iT'S WET, bATWOMAN," he said, as though afraid he was insulting her. Batwoman paused and took a closer look, actually picking up the glass from the floor. A thin later of liquid, which she truly had missed in the dark, coalesced and dripped off. She had not noticed past her heavily instrumented gloves. She touched the nearby carpet, not wanting to actually expose her fingerprints to the scene. "sAME," Oracle confirmed. Batwoman adjusted her mask, and soon saw the full extent of the water damage, covering much the same area as debris.

"Weather" she asked.

"wELL, iT'S NOT, uH, aCTUALLY WATER," replied Oracle, at once. "iT'S CHEMICAL, i'M BREAKING DOWN THE MAKEUP RIGHT NOW,"

"Maybe The Aftereffects Of A Gas Bomb" Batwoman suggested. Chemical agents could mean any number of things. It hardly even disqualified Ivy.

In the distance, a series of police cars arrived. Batwoman glanced out the hole and saw Harvey Bullock gesturing to the Batmobile, partially concealed in an alley. He caught sight of her - she had not bothered to hide - and shouted: "You ever consider strapping that jet engine to a squad car?" He angrily doffed his hat and stormed back to the cars, supervising Rose Lalonde's short trip to the station.

"Do You Have Enough Data" Batwoman asked Oracle. "Im Going To Question Harlequin"

"nOT, uH, a PROBLEM,"

Batwoman intercepted the guard en route to the hidden entrance in the side that led straight to maximum security.

"Find anything with your voodoo yet, Bats?" Bullock asked, heavy with the sarcasm as he was with his armed guard. Bullock knew that it could take ten officers to prevent the death of one, in this town. Noir had taught him that. "Because it's barely past sunset, and I don't look forward to a night without the Commish."

"Wait Until You Meet The Press In The Morning" Batwoman quipped, otherwise ignoring him and pressing straight on to Rose's guard. Harlequin smiled at his approach, then hid her interest by feigning an inspection of her nails. "Dr. Lalonde" she greeted, her growl nullifying her courtesy. "You Dont Look Surprised At The Battle Damage. Now Heres What I Think. I Think That If Something Big Was Going To Go Down The Same Night As His Big Plan I Imagine The Joker Would Have Known. What Do You Know"

"I plead the fifth," Rose said at once. "In the words of Jean-Paul Sartre..." She stuck out her tongue and continued: "_Tbbbbpptttttttt._" She then walked into the station herself, pulling her guards along with her.

"'Plead the fifth,'" Bullock quoted with a grunt. "Think we should pack her off to Arkham now or wait for a judge to do it for us?"

Batwoman was not about to gripe about the legal situation in Gotham, at least not outside of her thoughts. "I Found A Liquid Chemical Agent In The Commissioners Office" she said. "Have You Heard Of Anything Of The Sort In Any Other Recent Crimes"

"Chemical stuff, huh? Yeah, I've seen that. You mean _besides_ the place we just left that looks like a highblood's interior decorator?" He looked for a reaction that never came. Batwoman was examining the portico just in front of the building. When the station had been remodelled into its new fortress-state, it had been decorated with a history of three systems of law up three pillars: Human, Troll and Carapace. They came together to support the roof, with their new combined system gloriously upheld. The whole thing was riddled with bullet holes, burn damage, and new plaster to replace the old in patches.

Bullock lit a cigar instead. "Yeah, I've got three cases like that," he admitted. "Your girl's chasing after that loon in the top hat. He uses stuff like this." Batwoman nodded. They had yet to catch the Mad Hatter, so she could not put a name to the man with the obsessive habit of pinioning or impaling dolls and action figures at the scene of his abductions. It was starting to get out of hand. Batwoman had been forced to remind the family not to take calling cards like that personally, even if children were involved. "And then there's the nut with the eye thing." Another unknown, Troll, with heterochromia. "But that might be his backup."

"Any Sign Of Poison Ivy" Batwoman asked.

"Harley?" Bullock pondered for a moment. Batwoman was not surprised to hear him drop her name. They had met, so to speak, out of costume, before she had begun her work. Bullock was professional in how he didn't let the results it bruise him. "Nah," he said at last. "But you interrupted me. I've got one more. Little girl. Subjuggalator-stock, dropped outside the Temple about 3am last night, dead two hours. If we hadn't found her on the street they probably wouldn't have let us have her. They're not happy."

Batwoman had heard of the case. Besides Oracle's extensive network, the Subjuggalators tended to raise a fuss. It was their way of being denied their historical rites from All-Troll society to club in the heads of people who disagreed with them. According to their spokesperson, the fact that the girl was in autopsy "blew the whole punchline." "She Had Chemicals On Her" Batwoman said to confirm.

"More like in her," Bullock said. "We did the autopsy fast before those clowns could get really riled. It had soaked into her skin, whatever it was."

"How Long Had She Been Missing" Batwoman asked. She had a theory, and wanted to hear the details fresh, in light of this new information.

"Four months," Bullock said. "That's why they thought she had something hilarious to lay on them. Nutcases, this whole city is..." Batwoman was gone, Bullock was talking to air. He shook his head and put out his cigarette, having long learned to go about his own business when she decided to go about hers.

Batwoman skulked into the morgue, where he found the body of the indigo-blooded girl. Despite Bullock's label, the girl was in her mid-teens by common reckoning, and despite being away from the Temple, her face paint had been recently renewed, no more than two days. Batwoman took microscopic samples of her skin and face paint, staying quiet - as much dignity as a lusus-raised Troll from the second generation could muster for the dead.

Eridan Ampora had been of the first generation, she remembered. He had been bornin the days just after the Unification, and while he was ever kind of his fellow Trolls, it had taken years of work before he had given that same concern to the Carapaces and Humans under his ostensible protection. Life had changed that, and Eridan Ampora had changed. These days, the city would be crippled without its Commissioner. Batwoman knew she would have to work fast.

She took the Batmobile far away, very far, all the way to the caves. They were an old set of Troll breeding caves, abandoned before the Unification. She had been raised in the caves, even if she pretended to prefer the mansion she had built up top. No one had known she was there. No one had even known her lusus had existed, as far as she understood her mother's stories. For eight Human years, she had been safe. Sometimes, even now, in her thirties, Batwoman still felt it was the only safe place.

"Is The Line Safe" she asked into her cowl.

"iT'S, uH,,, It's safe, Kanaya."

Kanaya sighed with relief, and let the growl fall from her voice. And then, without pause, back to business. "Anything on the chemicals?" she asked, removing her cowl. Her hair was a mess, and instinct had her setting it in every idle moment, even though she planned to put the cowl straight back on after she had re-armed and checked her data. She popped out her contacts as well, into a nearby cup of poured solution. Her eyes behind were vivid jades. The colour was still very rare. She had never been able to shake the fear that without her contacts, she would be identified in a moment. She kept on her suit, looking like she had been cut raw out of armour and muscle, and settled in at her computer to examine the data in full.

"Nothing on the chemicals," Tavros replied. "It's going to take a... little while yet. I have a few samples but they're all mixed in with glass or brick."

"What about the girl?" she asked instead.

"I'm having more luck with her," Tavros admitted, "but without the stuff at the scene, we can't really, uh, connect the cases."

Kanaya sighed and poured over the data. After a time, she decided it was best to keep Tavros distracted from his mentor's disappearance. "Anyone taking advantage of the news?"

"I'm not sure anyone's aware, uh, of the news," he said. Kanaya could hear the worry in his voice, which was so very unlike Tavros in any other situation. Instinct nagged at her. Legally, she was Tavros' mother, but that was mostly to ensure he and his sister still had the funds to continue if the inevitable finally struck. Still, something still told her that she should at least be at Tavros' command centre to hold this discussion, not at the other side of town. It was hard to lose your mentor in a city of supercriminals. It was hard, and in a way, Kanaya was glad so few people understood. "Cans hit First National, but I think that was more tied to the, uh, the Joker."

Kanaya nodded. "Do you think Joker knows Harlequin still communicates with her brother? Cal's boys are doing too many minor crimes when the Joker is off doing something big for it to be a coincidence. Could we use that against either?"

"I don't know, Kanaya, banks and stuff... it's so small." In Gotham, at least. "How would we know where to wait for them?"

"I meant more Joker and Harlequin, but true. Cans is a bit hard to miss, though. I can understand why Cal is so fond of him."

"Heh, I remember pretty well, uh, myself," Oracle was saying. "Do you remember the time I-"

"What the horsegutting fuck is this?"

Kanaya's eyes snapped up to the door from the mansion. Her butler, Karkat, stormed down the steps. He was trim in his clean and pressed suit and carrying a silver tray like he was half about to use it as a weapon. He tossed it onto the computer arm next to her, otherwise dignified. "I step out of the cave for five goddamned seconds and come back to find you gossiping like a schoolgirl about petty crimes!"

Kanaya looked from him to the tray, and noticed that despite his verbal onslaught, he had still taken the time to prepare a cold meat sandwich, crackers and hummus. His hands were behind his back, but she had noticed that the other had held a glass of water. Kanaya casually took up the sandwich and took a bite, without breaking eye contact.

"I bet you think you're pretty funny," he growled at her.

She nodded to his left shoulder, and he tossed out the glass, spilling only a few drops of water before it wobbled to a perfect stop next to her plate. They had known each other too long for that. Karkat had childhood playmate, and as times had changed, he had changed with her. Karkat took out his aggression by attacking his silver-grey hair, which had been tussled out of its morning comb at least five times since dawn. He worked about his horns, which had barely grown out with age, and his eyes - more candy red than even orange those days - were furious. Kanaya was normally as proud to see his eyes. They showed how her childhood friend and ex-moirail spat in death's face day after day. It made her as proud as it did sad. "The Commissioner's been kidnapped," she informed him. "Someone's murdering subjuggalator trainees and The Ventriloquist is robbing banks."

"So everything's hunky-dory in Hell on Earth, USA," Karkat said, his arms behind his back. "Regular day at the office for Batwoman, the moron who runs around the city punching pyromaniacs with jetpacks in the face. Bad day at the office for Kanaya Maryam, who's supposed to be opening of upper-class fashion boutiques downtown."

"Oh... oh dear," Kanaya said. "I'm late, aren't I? ...Tavros, run those samples, we can do both."

"And with your impossible dresses taking nearly fifteen minutes to put on..." Kanaya got up and started to remove her gloves. Karkat continued. "Suit's going to take ten."

"Three!" she said with a glare. She was not blind to criticism when it could mean her life, but resented the implication that her gear wasn't doing exactly what it was designed for.

"Oh, fine, fine, and then there's the drive over there, in the _normal_ car..." Kanaya ducked into one of the changing rooms, giving Karkat an excuse to stop rambling. He turned to the screen instead. "'Sup, Tavros?"

"I, uh, I'm okay, I guess," Tavros lied. "I thought you were supposed to, uh, call me 'Master Tavros.' When did that stop?"

"What? Why? You don't live here any more."

* * *

><p>Kanaya Maryam, billionaire owner of an industrial conglomerate and fashion tycoon, cut the ribbon at her new boutique with just the right amount of dignity. She followed one speech with another, this one to start the party inside: for some of the attendees, the whole opening was no doubt an excuse to start drinking and she was not going to delay them. Kanaya dumped her martini out for water as soon as no one was looking.<p>

"Kanaya! The boutique looks wonderful!" said a guest, Mr. Young, an African-American man who tended to represent the investors.

"Douglas" Kanaya said cheerfully, the voice of an amiable socialite springing out of reflex. It was charming, it was charismatic, and it was just as fake as anything she had heard on the lips of men and woman trying to hide their identities, or emerge from behind them, like Harlequin. But people expected a socialite to be fake. Oracle, who had been speaking into her earpiece, quieted at once. "What A Pleasure To See You And Thank You For Saying"

Douglas smiled. "Kanaya, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Savannah. Soon to be Dr. Savannah Young, I think." He emphasized her future title proudly.

Kanaya smiled. "Enchanted" she said, and extended a hand. "Studying... medicine?"

Savannah, who looked to be in her late-twenties, smiled back. "My dad insists I come see the business side of everything so I'm ready to run Gotham General the _second_ I'm out of residency."

They all laughed, and Kanaya flashed Savannah an impish smile, conveying her own disinterest in the usual business small talk. Savannah grinned back. Her father missed the exchange. "Kanaya's always been a healthy investor in the hospitals," he said, but then caught something out of the corner of his eye. "I'll give you both a chance to chat, I think I see the Meticulous Manager. MM!" he called to a passing white carapace, leaving the two of them alone.

"Would You Like A Drink" Kanaya asked, as a server passed.

"Thank you," Savannah said, taking the glass. She did not quite look away from Kanaya. "That's a lovely dress," she said by way of excuse. Kanaya smiled. She was wearing a green dress, routinely elegant, built to tease at her muscular form. "I've always been a fan of your work, since my father introduced me to it," Savannah confessed, "I'm glad you've had a chance to open the boutique."

"Thank You" Kanaya said with a smile. "But Please Lets Not Talk About The Boutique Youre My One Hope For A Regular Evening What With Everything Else Going On Tonight"

They talked about medicine, for a time, as Savannah was quite knowledgeable about her studies and Kanaya proved more than enthusiastic in turn. They stopped only for visits by more investors, a few of Kanaya's attorneys and the mayor.

"Mr Mayor" Kanaya addressed with a smile. "I Was Hoping You Would Make It"

"Oh," said the mayor with a smile. "Even Gotham gets quiet nights, Miss Maryam." In a world of supertalented and devious, Kanaya admired their mayor: a Troll of some ancestry. He was a master liar.

In the brief moments she and Savannah were relatively alone, Kanaya leaned the conversation in a different direction, her partner following without missing a beat. Savannah seemed delighted to play, eyes sparkling at every surreptitious flirt or sideways glance, until she became too tipsy to hide it. Kanaya quietly wished she had brought the flirting to a point sooner, but the time she was willing to risk out of the evening had evaporated.

"You Know Savannah" she said, "Theres This Lovely Restaurant On The East Side... Now Ive Never Been To Medical School-" not entirely true, "But If You Could Spare Me An Hour Or Two To Spend With Me... Say... Tomorrow"

Savannah was not so drunk as to have lost all tack or dignity. Her eyes were bright. "Kanaya," she said, "I can spare you the whole evening."

Kanaya finished writing the address for the place - she could ensure a reservation - on a napkin, and took her leave of Savannah, gently brushing past her arm as she walked into the crowd. She used the opportunity to get up to date with Oracle.

"iT'S THE SAME CHEMICAL, aT BOTH SITES," Oracle confirmed as soon as Kanaya had reassured him that he was not interrupting, thank you for giving me my privacy, but it is truly best that we get back to work, yes, thank you. "iT'S A REFRIDGERANT,"

"Refridgerant" Kanaya asked under her breath, not sure she had heard properly. Oracle confirmed. "In The Commissioner's Office"

"yOU'RE, uH, oNLY SURPRISED ABOUT THAT," he asked.

"Well Yes" she admitted. "The Girl Was Dead For Only A Few Hours But Had Been Missing For Four Months With No Messages No Ransom No 'Joke.' It Seemed Possible She Had Been Killed Earlier And Presserv-"

Kanaya stopped with a jolt, as the information came all too late. With a screech, the locked door leading into the boutique's empty warehouse began to warp and turn alarmingly blue in only a few instants. This was followed a sonic blast, and the wall itself collapsed in shards of drywall, wood and brick, coated in ice. Kanaya backed away from the door, already thumbing a random message to Karkat in the limo. He would understand the texted garbage for what it meant, and would have her suit ready. A Human burst through the warehouse door and opened fire at the ceiling. "Everybody down!" he shouted.

He was followed by part of the troop that had attacked Gotham Central. Three Humans, two with guns and one with an energy pistol. Four Trolls, three Carapaces, similarly armed. A large, jungle purrbeast guarded one flank, the guests backing away from it. On the other flank: a humanbeast - a lusus gorilla species named by some Troll in the old days that must have thought he or she was very clever.

Kanaya ducked away, disappearing into the crowd before the thugs could see her. They set to work immediately, shouting demands for everyone to get down. Kanaya noted the mayor, a few steps from Savannah's father, trying to keep the crowd orderly and calm even as the screaming began. Kanaya almost blessed mob mentality in how the crowd ignored them all, giving her cover until she was out a service door. Behind her, the room descended into chaos.

Karkat suddenly came into her earbud. "Where the hell are you?" he growled.

"Thirty Seconds And Youre Not Supposed To Be On A Secure Line" Kanaya said all at once. "Oracle Can You See Anything" she asked, taking out a pair of glasses tied to his video feeds. He was already cycling through her own security cameras. Panic reigned, in every room but the warehouse. There, she could see a sturdy truck in that had been snuck in during the speeches: its occupants had crowded the door at first, making it impossible to pick them out individually. Just before Kanaya reached one of the side doors, she saw some of the thugs drag three VIPs, including the mayor, through the crowd and into the warehouse.

Kanaya removed the glasses as she reached the side door. She snuck out and carefully gassed the Dersian that had been set up to guard it. It was the only way to safely knock out a Carapace. "Pardon Me" she muttered as she lowered her victim quickly to the ground. From there she walked double-time to Karkat, glasses back on her eyes. The prisoners had been held just inside the camera's sight.

A figure stepped out of the shadows. A Troll, wearing a heavy, armoured suit appeared, armed with a massive cannon affixed to the suit's right arm. "Oracle," she whispered. "Give Us A Zoom" Oracle obliged before she even finished talking, curious as she. The Troll in the suit was a woman, ancient, with skin hanging from the bone. Her horns were horns sawed off to the deep orange to help her fit inside of a bubble helm, filled with blue liquid. Her ghost-white hair framed her face, floating free in the solution.

The mayor saw her face and blanched. "You!" His voice fell to a whisper. "...You're dead."

"death" mused the Troll, without emotion. Kanaya had fought many costumed villains in her career. Most had disguised their voices. This old woman was doing the same, but it was further distorted by the suit, empty and cold. She raised her weapon to the hostages. "death is an illusi0n"

She fired.

* * *

><p><em>Like Bats, Freeze isn't using the colour you'd think she would: she's using a light blue instead of her usual red, which represents the suit's filtered speech interfering with her own voice.<em>

_If you're wondering, no, no Karkat and Joker aren't moirails in this world. Not yet. It would make an interesting issue or two, methinks. Instead, that role (at least, in the past) seems to have fallen to Kanaya, not because I'm a fan of the pairing (I am) but because it's easy tragedy and I am a hack. C'mere, I'll show you how it plays out:_

_Kanaya and Karkat are from the exact same grub batch, but blood has told, putting Karkat in his final years while Kanaya is still in her prime. They grew up together after Kanaya's lusus smuggled the candy-redblood out (while the Trolls are held up to a higher standard by the triple-society, hemo-racism still exists) along with his lusus. They were moirails for a time before they broke up when it became clear that Karkat could not support the Batwoman nonsense as a moirail, but made the hard decision. The Alfred role is sort of an enabler, if you haven't noticed. They never acknowledged the break-up, it just sort of happened over time until one day they realized the feelings were entirely gone. Man, that would make a good issue too. Too bad I don't have time to just sit here cranking out stupid crossovers._

_"Pyromaniacs with Jetpacks" I would probably be quite happy to write a Matchsticks story, being rather fond of the Firefly. He's incredibly mundane but wields an uncontrollably dangerous weapon. It's the simple things that work the best, most of the time._

_No, Savannah and her father aren't "anyone" in the grand Homestuck/DCU guessing game we have going here. Sometimes the minor characters are just minor characters._


	3. Chapter 3

How to feel like an idiot in 0 steps: end a fic on one site without ending it on another, and then wait for someone to follow it. New follower, this is for you, with my apologies. Troll Batman was cancelled back in June, and all I have left to offer are the notes I posted to wrap it up, along with notes on several other issues I had considered along the way: the one in progress, two short ideas, and one just as detailed!

Issue 1 was going to proceed with Batwoman trying to fight Freeze (yes, Aradia) only for Freeze to escape. Luckily, Batwoman would be rescued by the one Bullock earlier addressed as "your girl" chasing the Mad Hatter: PM in the role of Cassandra Cain, under Cassandra's Blackbat pseudonym. This was planned before Cascade reminded the world that PM was a badass, but I didn't mind missing my chance much. Since PM has had has few lines – just the ones to Jade before Bec blew up her terminal – letting PM/Cassie be mute at this point in her life seemed like the best idea. Yes: PM was Kanaya's adopted daughter and Tavros' sister, as alluded to in the scenes with Tavros. Blackbat saves and teams up with Batwoman – I wasn't sure if she would show up after that point or not.

We would eventually cut to Eridan imprisoned by Freeze. Learning from the mayor that Aradia was once a researcher working with him in his medical research days (whoops, I accidentally _Unwound Future_), we learn that she's supposed to be dead not because she died on his watch, as per Victor Fries, but simply because she's a rustblood and the research was taking place 70 or so years ago. Eridan learns from Freeze that she lost a teacher and mentor she idealized because he, too, was low on the hemospectrum. Freeze resolved to find a "cure" for the age difference. The freezing process has protected her so far, and she intends to use it to neutralize the hemospectrum worldwide, whether they want her to her or not. She's confirmed it won't kill an acceptable fraction of the land Troll, Humans and Carapacian. All she has to do is make sure it won't kill all the seadwellers, which she's been… having trouble with. Several of the hostages are probably killed on screen. We learn that she's only kidnapped people she believes has abused the hemospectrum, and has learned of Eridan's would-be-genocidal past. She doesn't much care that he's reformed.

To find Freeze's base, Batwoman tracks down the local incarnation of Black Mask. Unlike most of the cameos, who are Homestuck characters, Black Mask is still the current Batman Comics Black Mask: Jeremiah Arkham. However, he's convinced that he's actually the previous Black Mask, Roman Sionis. The Roman personality, however, is convinced that he's someone else as well. The trouble is the Black Mask itself: not made from cloth or coffin-wood or whatever the comics-verse story of the day is, but from Carapace shell. Sionis, it would seem, has been wearing a piece (ugh) of the late Diamonds Droog, and Droog's game programming has taken over anyone violating its remains (Sionis), who in turn took over Arkham. The three personalities now exist in an amalgam, but Batwoman has learned that if she can get the mask off of them, only one will exist at a time, which she can influence through various stimuli (sometimes just shouting their names). Between Arkham's patient records, Sionis' business ventures and Droog's sheer criminal genius, Batwoman tracks down Freeze's base.

When Batwoman arrives, Freeze tries to claim/boast that she's trying to fix an unjust flaw in biology itself, and that no legal and cultural balance will be able to fix the lowblood's short lifespans. In the fight, Batwoman frees Eridan, who was being frozen at the time, and so is in no good shape to fight, but does so all the same, helping her knock Freeze to the ground. Eridan, continuing a line of discussion from before, says that he was old when he realized he had been a racist monster, and doesn't have many years left himself. "It's not the same, but for what it might be worth to you, I've tried to do the best with what time I have left."

Batwoman, overhearing this, disappears after the arrests are made. The next night, Kanaya seems to have left Savannah behind, abandoning their date. Instead, we find that she has given Gotham Central an early-evening birthday gift: The Joker in cuffs. When Harlequin insists she leave her Mister J alone, Batwoman cryptically remarks that she's "making the best of her time" before slamming the small window to Harlequin's cell shut.

* * *

><p>The second volume was probably never going to be written, which was too bad because I was actually quite enjoying the idea. The villain of the issue would be Poison Ivy – Jade Harley. The story starts when dead bodies start turning up in Gotham, horribly decayed. Batwoman gets involved simply because of the serial killings, and meets up with Team Sleuth, who work for Gotham PD. They bond over weaponitem duality, though it appears Sleuth can never get his stuff to work properly, constantly drawing keys instead of pistols, flamethrowers instead of forensic kits. As they're investigating a scene, Bats discovers that the newest victims only went missing days before - not enough for the decay to set in. Through a series of cutaways, we see from the point of view of Equius, who is being held hostage in his own laboratory by Ivy. We learn that he is a researcher come to Gotham for a grant, but has now been forced to develop a virus that will induce rapid purification, and spread through spores (Jade finds the idea of turning everyone on the planet into compost ADORABLE because she's Jade, and also a psychopath, and we get to see the rotting process). Jade's terrified research team can't quite get the two halves to work together, however. She can rot people, but can't spread spores, or she can spread spores of some of her other genetic monstrosity plants, but isn't willing to settle for just half (not that that doesn't give us some handy instant monsters for Batwoman to fight).

In some of these cutaways to Equius, we learn that one of the hostages Ivy has taken is Nepeta, who is about fourteen or so. She absolutely idolizes Batwoman (in fact, she confesses to having a crush on her) and has gathered up a bevy of gymnastics and thieving skills and was apparently caught trying to rob the place. Equius discovers early on that Nepeta has no idea what to do with her life because she has too many ideas and no direction. Equius finds he admires her imagination and wants to encourage her, and on her own she eventually tries to escape, but despite a fair attempt, no luck. Later, as their fellow prisoners start to die, Equius discovers Nepeta's losing her heart, and so he tries to encourage her to believe in herself, and talks about his quest to improve people's lives with his research in pharmatherapy. As we intercut from Batwoman and Team Sleuth's investigation to Equius and Nepeta, we see that Jade is rapidly running out of hostages.

Back with Batwoman, over time only Sleuth starts showing up to the scene as Team Sleuth splits up to cover more ground, and to make things easier on me. About that time, the investigation starts to go strange, as Batwoman and Sleuth start to discover conventionally killed bodies as well as rotten. In one scene, there doesn't even seem to be any tracks leaving the area, implying that the dead bodies were Ivy's own assistants and may have been killed by her plants (or at least, the reader can tell that, Batwoman might not know about Ivy quite yet). Investigating the new corpses gets Batwoman closer and closer, almost attacking one of Ivy's cells, only to find them murdered in the short time it took her to get to the scene. She and Sleuth are baffled but Sleuth has found a clue pointing to Ivy's stronghold. There, we fight some plants (some of my notes mention a giant Dersite Knight controlled by plants) and Equius and Nepeta decide to break out of their prison, Equius going for some chemical enhancers he had prepared, and Nepeta ready to use her burglar skills to escape. But as the groups seem to converge on the same point, Batwoman suddenly arrives to find Equius ragged, bloody, and alone. We discover that the scenes were being told out of chronological order: Equius and Nepeta's escape attempt was made, and failed, weeks prior. Nepeta was captured and killed in the next experiment, her rotted body no doubt already at Gotham PD.

The present-day Equius is distraught and raving at Batwoman, having apparently projected Nepeta's love of the superheroine into blame for her not arriving sooner. As he rants, he begins preparing a cocktail of powerful steroids and stimulants, and threatens to use them as Batwoman and Sleuth try to drill him for information. Unfortunately, but he only wants to talk about Nepeta, who he keeps addressing by a pet name (I was trying to draw comparisons to Bane's teddy bear, Osito ("little bear"), but don't know near enough Spanish to come up with a cutesy diminutive for "little cat", and wasn't even sure if it was worth making Equius Spanish just for the connection in the first place). Suddenly, the Dersite Knight or some other notable plant shows up with Ivy at the helm. In a show of bravado, Sleuth says something suitably noir and goes after the giant horse monster, while Batwoman and an enraged Equius go after Jade.

The two chases (to skip a fight scene) come to an end in an arboretum, where Sleuth suddenly reappears when Ivy tries to escape. Thinking he's not being observed, Sleuth suddenly draws a gun and tries to shoot her, only for Batwoman to disarm him with a batarang… and then realize that Sleuth could never intentionally draw a gun, what with his weapon/item duality problems. A few other clues would also back this up, but Kanaya suddenly realizes that Sleuth was the one that was killing the suspects near the decomposed bodies, and that was how "the criminal" kept beating her to the punch. She may even realize that the rest of Team Sleuth had been abducted, not split up. The chase proceeds for a moment, before Jade manages to reach some of her more powerful plants and launches a counterattack, spearing Sleuth. She is ultimately distracted by Equius. And then they all notice that something is very, very wrong with Sleuth's injury.

See, everyone generous enough to submit character suggestions told me to put Nepeta as Catwoman, but that's something I've always found a bit superficial. Sure, she likes cats, and they're both rogues, but beyond the cat thing, Catwoman/Selina Kyle is a sophisticated, high-class woman with a strong sense of personal morality and, at least in the animated series I was raised on, is a staunch animal rights activist. If anything, she's better suited for _Feferi_, and so that is how I've cast her in this universe. Nepeta's personality, with the boundless imagination and the ability to play pretend at all times better matches a different Batman villain entirely, in my humble opinion: Clayface. Ivy's experiment has gone truly wrong, and the decay virus has transformed Nepeta into a transforming monster, and she has been hunting down Ivy's goons alongside her crush and hero for weeks.

Dripping wet soil from her injury (having been decomposed from within by Ivy's virus, Nepeta is less like the traditional Clayface and more like a stretchy sack of fresh soil that smells like death when perforated), Nepeta changes shape (probably not to herself to preserve the mystery a bit longer, and also for combat reasons) and she almost destroys Jade... in time – the issue's almost over and I'd like Nepeta to have her moment, so Jade gets to fight back pretty effectively for a while just to drag things out. Equius, while initially relieved to see Nepeta alive, is astonished by her brutality.

Batwoman manages to keep her from murdering Ivy, and Equius tries to talk her down, saying that since they've been rescued and Nepeta is okay, everything will be all right. Nepeta insists that it won't, referring to the other dead prisoners weighing on her conscience, her mutated form, and – petty, but the straw that breaks the back – also the poor stitching job she's done of her own skin to cover the operation scars. When Equius tries to insist that the changes are nothing, and Nepeta can still be whatever she wants in life, Nepeta breaks down and insists she doesn't want to be anything, any more. This has a profound effect on her body, which breaks down, and despite protests, she collapses and seems to die for real. When Jade makes a callous remark about her going on to serve the plants in the arboretum, Equius nearly kills her himself, but is willingly arrested for his (coerced) complacency in Ivy's plot. The real Sleuth is found with the rest of Team Sleuth, not much worse for wear.

We later see that Equius has arranged to continue his research in a minimum security prison, where he is refining his chemical formula. As we watch, he receives a shipment from a surreptitious ally: dried sand, which he pours into what seems to be one of dozens of rough cat dolls he's suspended throughout his room.

When Batwoman returns home, however, she hears an intermittently tapped signal from Karkat, who's been tied up. She keeps on her gear and goes to sneak through, attempting to ambush the intruder, who catches on quickly and defends herself: Vriska, playing the role of Talia al Ghul, and here with a proposition for her "beloved." What that was, I never actually planned to write.

* * *

><p>But I did have two other plans: short issues covering other aspects of the universe. To understand this bit, you're going to have to understand how the universe was created, which is mostly bullshit torqued to meet what I had already put down on page. That's cool, right? Long story short, the cast went through much the same adventures they did in canon, met up with some of the Alternian exiles, only to fail and were forced to (somehow, I don't know how) scratch the universe together, and were reborn in the new world, but not together. This rare, highly-dangerous third Scratch caused the B1 kids (first generation players) AND the A2 Trolls (second generation players) to become ancestors together, with the B2 kids and A1 trolls as the new batch of players, yet to be meteor-born. With the players not yet around, this whole superhero and villain nonsense began, and would continue until even the new players were heroes or villains, and the next game of Sburb began in a sort of company-wide crossover event sort of thing. I don't know.<p>

The first signs we get of this are when Kanaya meets the Riddler in a one-off. She thinks she's tracked the man down, only to discover that Clover (her suspect) is just a small-timer, the Cluemaster. (The Cluemaster is of course the father of Stephanie Brown in the comics, aka Spoiler, Robin and Batgirl. While I wasn't sure how I was going to communicate this, a side note would be that Clover would later adopt a child – one of the next session's players, probably a Troll – who would become the Spoiler before the game began). This was a little joke on my part: DC has two riddler-type villains, but only one really matters. Similarily, MSPA has two characters related to puzzles, and only one of them matters. That's right: I decided to make Riddler the (real) Problem Sleuth. Doing a psyche-out with PS twice was a bad idea, but hey, I'm tossing the ideas out here, there's no need for me to _fix_ them.

PS/Riddler's story is much darker than the usual Riddler fare. Riddler is obsessed with solving The Ultimate Riddle: not the one from Sburb (as he might dramatically declare during the crossover event) but Sburb itself: he wants to know why it exists. He means that somewhat extistentially. You see, like the Sufferer, Riddler remembers the last session, where he served as an Exile: Kanaya's. He hasn't made the connection, but is in prime position to do so, for the sake of drama. The thing is, if he did know, it might very well disarm him, because Kanaya's memory haunts him day and night. Like WV, he saw the B2 Kanaya be murdered on-screen, and his connection cut out – it didn't revive when she came back as a rainbow drinker. The closer the game comes in the Troll Batman universe, the more clues he finds, and the more he comes to realize their whole existence relies on a game that once forced twelve kids (his words) to fight and die pointlessly, and wonders why he was even brought in if it was all going to end in failure. In an older draft, Sleuth was an exile to a Human from one of the failed sessions, and couldn't reconcile why the universe would force him to watch the kid die slowly of thirst when there was nothing he could do. I couldn't pick between them. Guess I just felt like being mean to the guy. I dunno, I think the idea's kind of tacky now.

* * *

><p>The last issue was much happier in the end, pointing towards the finale I would never write. It would focus on one of the other people who remember what was going on in the previous game: John, the Heir of Breath. He can fly, he has more mangrit than a locomotive, and he is this universe's analogue to Superman.<p>

The issue introducing him would have followed a rough format, showing how he became famous as a superhero, but mostly becamse famous for his most ostentatious ability: that he cannot die. John has brought his God Tier powers into the new universe, as has Vriska (between her and Ra's al Ghul, who is probably the First Guardian or something, no one would notice if the Lazarus Pits _don't actually work_). Unfortunately, this has led to poor John's disillusionment. As he can't really "rescue" people lest he risk dying a heroic death, John has been forced to maintain disinterest and sometimes a very poor track record in his heroics, as he knows his real purpose is to raise one of the new Heroes to prominence for the next incarnation of Sburb. But good fortune has smiled on him, in how he began to inspire others to fill the same roles. One day, he recognized Kanaya, and deliberately began to drop clues for her to lead her to him, and they began a partnership.

The story would have ended years in the future (but not many) as Kanaya, near the end of her life, came to talk to John one last time. Most of the Troll and Human named characters, and perhaps even the Carapacian named characters, have died, even Oracle. The League of Shadows, Freeze and Clayface are still active, of course, along with Catwoman, but Bane has passed and Kanaya's good health and athleticism were never going to carry her years past Equius' if it hadn't been for his chemical abuse. The Ventriloquist and Harlequin have gone underground (being immortal themselves), and the Joker – older than Kanaya in the first place – is making it clear that he is going to drag Batwoman out of retirement out if it kills the both of them (and he really hopes it does).

Noticing that John is as young as ever, Batwoman asks him to tell her honestly what's going to happen and if it was all worth it. John spills most of the details, and then tells Kanaya that he's found some of the new players, including Kanaya's own protege in the Spoiler, and predicts the rise of the Justice League before the game begins. John then asks if she wants him to go with her, but Kanaya decides he's right. Indeed, instead of making sure just one kid makes it into the game, with so few of the Guardians still alive, John will have to do the work for most of them, the rest of the Guardians barely serving past Golden Age inspiration for the new kids. Kanaya then leaves, going back to Gotham for one last night, before disappearing forever as the city endures one last prolonged scream of deranged laughter.

Actually, I think this idea's kind of tacky too, now. And that's how I end this. See you around, Kanaya.


End file.
